2013

Between working on my Gift Guide, doing podcasts, going to MACE, and general other stuff, I’m up over a month behind on my game night reports. So rather than continue to let this weight build up on top of me, I’m gonna just blow most of it out all in one, big catch-up article right here…

I’ve been wanting to do this show for a while. Stefan Feld is one of my favorite designers, and he’s been on a crazy run over the last couple of years. So in this episode, I’m going to take his two middle-weight games from the last year, Bruges and Rialto, and compare them to each other. It’s hot Feld-on-Feld action, and best of all, I’m going to give away my copy of the game I like least!

Below, you will find 30 games and one toy that I think will make really fantastic gifts. And between the 5 different categories, you should hopefully be able to find a game for almost anyone on your list…

In this episode, my friend Ken Coble and I sit down to discuss our experience with MACE, a semi-local gaming convention in Charlotte, NC. This was my 11th straight year going to MACE, Ken’s 3rd, and the convention’s 2nd year in Charlotte. While we do spend a little time talking some about the con itself and some of the people we met, the bulk of our comments here are about the games we played throughout the weekend, so hopefully this show will be useful even to those of you who will never have the chance to come to MACE…

In the first of my new “shorter format” shows, I make it all about Kickstarter. First off, I talk about 5 current Kickstarter projects that have gotten my attention (and some of my money). Then, I get into an in-depth review of Kings of Israel, a fully cooperative game about ancient Israel, that’s also currently active on Kickstarter…

The freaking Pathfinder Adventure Card Game is not a freaking RPG! It’s a freaking card game, potentially even a very good one, but from what I’ve read, there’s no actual roleplaying involved anywhere in the actual rules of the actual game…

It was good to be back “home” at game night over the last few weeks, especially since I have a number of new games I’ve gotten in lately that I want (and need) to get to the table. And more than that, I hadn’t seen my gaming friends for way too long, and it was great to sit across the table from them again. So once I got to the store and mostly settled in a couple of weeks ago, I got started explaining the rules to…

I got to play a couple of new games at game night this week, both of which I enjoyed. And even better, I actually got some really nice pictures of both games that made it very difficult to choose which should be highlighted here. While I enjoyed playing Compounded more as a game, in the end, I think that the best photograph I took this week was from my first play of Canterbury…

Once again, I finally found my way back to the mic to record another episode of Exploring Games!
In this installment, I start off with some announcements about plans for the future and the progress of my own game (Acute Care). I then go through a hefty list of “recently” (a term that I use a little lightly here) played games. Next are the main segments of the show, with first getting into a little exploration about what is a good definition for what is or is not a game, and then finishing with an in-depth review of Suburbia…

The main problem with writing these catch-up reports is trying to come up with an even remotely sensible title from (in this case) 10 or so different game names. It doesn’t always work, especially when you have a lot of place names and/or foreign words. And sometimes, you just have to say “screw it!” and leave some out (as I did here with Deadwood Studios and Taluva).
Of course, the other problem with these things is that I tend to forget a lot of details when I’m thinking back 2 or 3 or even more weeks. But with so many games to write about, maybe cutting some of the commentary a little short isn’t such a bad thing…

A couple of big things happened last week. I covered one in my last post (which actually postponed this one), but the other one was the release of Pandemic for the iPad. Pandemic is, of course, my favorite game, so I purchased it immediately and have played a dozen or two games of it already. So here’s my take on it…